The Distance of Love
for my mother
on the phone
I murmur to mother,
I love you ...
an ocean away
the silence at her end
Coming back home after my first day in grade one, I asked, Mom, do you love me?
I love you this much, she said with a laugh, holding her hands half a meter apart.
Now, forty years later, living in another country, I still can't fathom the depth of that L word inscribed in my mother's heart.
Haibun Today, 12:3, September 2018
Chen-ou Liu
Chen-ou Liu’s "The Distance of Love," A Commentary by Pravat Kumar Padhy (
Haibun Today, 12:4, December 2018): Liu's Tanka Prose is a serene symbol of eternal love of a mother. The spectrum of the tanka is based on love, grief and solitude (ushintei). The poet symbolizes the emotional credence and divine love for his mother by placing the tanka in the beginning. This, in essence, manifests a long bridge of emotional feeling in the reader’s mind for the follow-up prose. The reader is urged to travel the distance into the prose to fathom the emotional exploration...
see the full text here
Chen-ou Liu’s "The Distance of Love," A Commentary by Gerry Jacobson (Haibun Today, 12:4, December 2018): Liu’s piece pierces me: brings up the guilt. I walked out of my London home at 18, caught a train to Tilbury dock, emigrated to Australia, never saw my mother again... I’m grateful to Chen-ou for opening up these feelings. And I’ve said nothing about his piece. Perhaps I don’t need to. It’s perfect.
the spirit travels
at the speed of a horse
so they say -
mine has been galloping
far too fast
See the full text here
Note:
The Distance of Love is a sequel to the following tanka prose:
The Pain from an Old Wound
standing still
on the opposite shores
of the Pacific
in a dream ...
youthful Mother and aging me
When I was young, homesickness was a long cable line:
me on one end, Mother on the other.
When I grew up, homesickness was a three-sheet letter:
an hour’s labor, written and folded with care.
But later on, homesickness was reduced to $3 plus tax:
a seasonal greeting card.
Now, homesickness is a surging sea:
me in this Promised Land, Mother on a crowded island.
drifting in a dream
turned into a bird
flying over the Pacific --
I open my eyes
upon darkness again
Kokako, 22 April, 2015
Chen-ou Liu
